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History Talk

Confederates and Lynching in American Public Memory

This year, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice—the nation’s first memorial to the over 4,000 African American victims of lynching—opened in Montgomery, Alabama. The opening of the memorial, however, coincides with a recent intensification in debates over Confederate monuments. How do these two trends in commemorating our nation’s past relate to one anther? What messages do these differing monuments send? And what’s at stake in the battle over them? On this episode of History Talk, hosts Jessica Viñas-Nelson and Brenna Miller speak with Professors Hasan Jeffries, Sarah E. Gardner, and Steven Conn to discuss the controversies surrounding monuments and memory in America and how we reconcile the history behind them.